Friday, March 19, 2010

Seamline Removal - AC White Glint WIP part VII

Ello guys, I just removed the seam lines of the AC White Glint, actually I just applied cement and I will sand it tomorrow. I figured that this part of the AC WIP could be a small tutorial on how you remove seam lines using Tamiya Cement and Tamiya Thin Cement. Both types does the job well, they just use different methods when applied. The most important TIP here is that both cements dries in minutes BUT cures overnight...so let the cement cure before sanding.

Now lets go through the simple steps with pictures...

Tamiya Cement, this is the standard type...a lot thicker than the thin variety and dries to touch a bit faster...You apply this by opening the two pieces apart and put some cement with the included brush on the edges of both parts...

the two parts that needs cementing...

put cement on BOTH parts around the edges...

assemble and press together firmly until some melting plastic oozes out...this is good...if done properly/successfully, you won't need to putty the parts. As you can see in both pictures, some oozed out styrene appeared due to the pressure of pressing the two parts together...this dries to touch in minutes but cures overnight ( or at least a couple of hours ). NOW, I will be sanding this early tomorrow and will update with pics.

Tamiya THIN cement, this variety is newer and thus there are a few tutorials of this around. Anyways, this is a thinner variety of the standard cement earlier and as I've said you use a different method in using this. If you apply this to both parts like the standard version...it practically dries due to the thinness of the mixture. This is a ton easier to use on small parts and parts that has complicated edges like guns...Now here are some pics...

Here is how to use the Tamiya THIN Cement...open the two parts apart, but leave a gap as wide as a normal panel line in between the two parts...

Then, put a drop of Tamiya THIN Cement on the gap and you will see that the cement will ran through the gap because of capillary action. This is pretty much the same as when you do panel lines with enamels...

IMPORTANT: let the thin cement stand for 10 seconds before pressing both parts together...see that there is melted styrene in between the parts similar to the standard cement. Again, let it cure overnight ( or at least a couple of hours ) before sanding...

Now, here are some pics of the AC White Glint in my usual tray for modding tomorrow...

BTW, here are some problem areas of the AC White Glint...first the main body part has a seamline, I have to mod this later coz there are parts pressed in between these parts that are in a different color.

Here is another problem area...the armor parts of the thigh has a seamline in the middle..it's either I paint first the internals and mask then remove seamline...OR do some mods so that I won't need to remove the seam lines at all...We will tackle these problems as we go through the build.

Here are some pics of all the cylinders that that I cemented to remove the seamlines and the forearms...I will be sanding this tomorrow...Dang, this kit has sooo many seam lines to fix. hihi

QUICK Update: scraping off the seam lines...

Ello guys, here is a very quick update on removing the seam lines...Basically you sand those seams off with a rough sandpaper ( 600 grit ) and then wetsand with a smooth sandapaper ( 1200 grit and up ). But it is very difficult to sand off the areas with very small and complicated spots...basically you just SCRAPE this off with a fresh art knife. I cannot show you the sanding yet, coz I will be re scribing ALL the existing panel lines to make them deeper. If you skip the rescribing panel line part and sand the parts immediately...most likely you will be sanding OFF those shallow existing panel lines. Anyways here are a few pics showing how I scraped off the seam lines with an art knife without sanding yet.

You can see in the picthat it is still rough, I will need to scrape off a bit more and wet sand the large areas, But basically I've shown you how easy it is to remove seam lines.;)